Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1887-10-01


enemy. My friend, you will never do wrong
if you keep your life close alongside the Ter
Commandments Do right und you can be
as brave as Maria Theresa, who rode up The
hill of Defiance and shook her sword ct the
four corners of the earth.
"But," you say. "you shut us young folks
out from all fun.n Oh, mol I like fun. be-
lieve in fun. have had lots of it in my
'timo But have not had to go into paths OF
sin to find it. No credit to me, but because
of an extraordinary parental example
and influence I was kept from outward
trangressons, though my heart was bad
enough and desperately wicked. l have had
fun illmitable, though never swore one
oath, and never gambled for SO much as the
value of q pin, and never saw the inside Of a
haunt Of sin save as when ten years ago,
with commissioner of police and IL detective
and two elders Of my church, explored these
cities 10y midnight, not out of curiosity, hut
that might in pulpit discourse set before
the people the poverty and the horrors OF uii-
foreground city life. Yet though Inever was
Intoxicated for an instant, and never com
united one act OF sdissoluteness, restrained
only by the grace Of God. without which re-
struint I would have gone headlong to the
bottom OF infamy, have had SO much fun
that I don't believe there is man
on the planet in the present time
who has had more. Hear it, men and
boys, women and girls oil the fun ispn the
side of right. Sin may seem attractive, but
it is dcnthful, and like the manchinecl, tree
whose dews nre poisonous. The only genuine
happiness is in an honest Christian life. The
Chippewa, wanting to see God, blackens his
face with charcoal and fasts till he has a
vision of what he cnls God My God can
see best when I take my hat off and let tho
sunshine blaze in my face, and after o rea-
sonahle breakfast He is not God of black
tud', and the glory of the monday sun is
Egyptian midnight compared to it. There
they go-two brothers. The one was converted
u year ago in church, one Sunday morning.
during prayer, or sermon, OF hymn. No one
knew it at the time The persons on either
side of him suspected nothing. but in that
young mars soul this process went on:
Lord, here I am, young man amid the
temptations of city life, and am afraid to
risk them alone; come and lie my pardon ind
my help; save me from making the mistake
that some OF my comrades are making, and
savc ME now" And quicker than 4 fash God
rolled heaven into his soul. BE is just MS
jolly as be used to be, is just as brilliant as lie
used to be. He can strike ball or catch one
as easily as before lie was converted. With
gun or fishing rod in this summer vacation
he was just us skillful as before. The world
is brighter to him than ever. He appre-
cates pictures, music, innocent hilarity, So
cul life. good jokes, and has plenty of fun,
first class fun, glorious fun. But his brother
is going down hill. III the morning his head
aches from the champagne debauch. Every
body sees lie is i'll rapid descent. What cares
lie for right, or decency, or the honor of his
family name? Turned out of employment,
depleted III health, cast down In spirits the
typhoid fever strikes him in the smallest
room on the fourth story OF O fifth rate
boarding house, cursing God, and calling for
his mother, and fighting back demons from
his dying pillow, Which is besweated and
torn torngs lie plunges out of this world
with the Shrek OF a destroyed spirit.
Alas for that kind of fun 1t is re-
morse. It is despair. It. is blackness
of darkness. 1t is WOO amending and long
reverberating, and crushing as though all the
mountains OF oil continents rolled Oh him in
one. avalanche. My soul, stand back from.
such fun. Young man, there is no fun in
shipwrecking your character, no fun III dis
! gracing your fathers name. There is no fun
in breaking your mothers heart. There is
no fun in the physical pangs of the dissolute.
There is no fun in the profigate's death bed.
! There is no fun in al undonc eternity.
Paracelsus, out of the ashes OF a burnt rose,
said he could recreate the rose, but lie failed
i'll the alchenic undertaking, AMI roseate life
once burned down in sin can never again be
made to blossom.
Oh, this plumb line of the everlasting right
God will throw it over all our lives TO show
us our moral reflections God will throw It
over all churches to show whether they are
doing useful work or are standing instances
of idleness and pretcnse. He will throw that
plumb line over oil nations to demonstrate
whether their laws are just or cruel, their
rulers good or bad, their ambitions holy or
| infamous He threw that plumb line over
the 81 anish monarchy Of other days, and
what became of her9 Ask the splintered
hulks of her overthrown armada. He threw
that plumb line over French imperialism,
and what was tile result! Ask the ruins of
her Tuileries, and the fallen column Of the
Place Vendome, and tho grave trenches Of
Sedan, and tue blood of revolutions of dif-
ferent times rolling through the Champs
! Elysees He threw that plumb line over
ancient Rome, and what became of the realm
of the Caesars? Ask her war eagles, with
beals dulled and wings broken, flung helpless
into the Tiber. He threw it over the As
syrian empire of thousand years, the
thrones Of Semiramis, and Sardanapalus, and
Shalnlaneser, of twenty-seven victorious ex-
petitions, the cities of Ph9nicia kneeling to
the scepter, and al the world b!anchcd in the
presence What became Of all the GRANDEUR
Ask the fallen palaces of Khorsabad and the
corpses of her 900 soldiery slain by the
angel of tho Lord in one night, and the Assyrian
sculptures Of tile worlds museums, all that
! now remains of that splendor before which
nations staggered and crouched. God is now
throwing that plumb line over this American
republic, and it is q solemn time with this
nation, and whether we keep his Sabbaths or
dishonor them, whether righteousness or in
EQUITY dominate, whether we are Christian
or inidel, whether we fulfill our mission or
refuse it, whether we are for God or against
him, we'll decide whether we shall as ma
lion go OH in higher and higher career or go
=
down in the'same grave where Babylon, and
Nineveh, and Thebes, and Assyria are
sepulchered.
aBut," say you, "if there be nothing but q
plumb line what can my Of us do, for there
is an old provcrb which truthfully declares:
If the best mans faults were written on his
forehead it would make him pull his hat over
his eyes, What shall we do when, according
to Isaiah, God shall lay Judgment to the line
and righteousness to the plummetp All,
here is where the Gospel comes in with
Saviour's Righteousness to make up for our
deficits. And while see hanging on the
wall plumb line, see also hanging there
cross And while tho one condemns us the
other saves US, if only we will hold to it.
And here and now you may be SET free with